The Internet has become an integral part of the everyday life of households, firms and governments. Its proper functioning over the long run is therefore crucial for economic growth and people’s wellbeing more generally. The success of the Internet depends on its openness and the confidence of...

Network neutrality has recently become a major issue in the telecommunications industry as the demand for services which need more bandwidth have continued to grow. It is frequently argued that network neutrality is necessary to guarantee fair competition, continuous innovation among contents...

Internet-based platform businesses outcompete traditional brick and mortar business on nearly all measures of comparison. Similarly, distributed ledger technology (DLT) businesses depend on the internet and show a lot of promise in multiple business verticals. Yet, internet-based platform...

We discuss how the acquisition of private information by default without compensation by digital platforms such as Google and Facebook creates a market failure and can be grounds for antitrust enforcement. To avoid the market failure, the default in the collection of personal information has to...

We compare the private and social incentives for privacy when sellers can commit to transparent privacy policies that are understood by consumers. The purpose is to establish a baseline for how well markets perform when firms' privacy policies are common knowledge. In this setting, if the market...

In this paper, we apply pair-wise Propensity Score matching approach to the question of Internet use and job search. As in Phoenix Center Policy Paper No. 39, Internet use of all types is found to reduce labor market discouragement by about 60%. The effect of dial-up is smaller, but still large,...

Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google, as well as Twitter – the FANG companies – have transformed society with both positive and negative effects. Soaring consumer access to information, news, social networks, and entertainment has been stimulated by the ever-more ubiquitous and falling...

Free!! Google and Facebook!!! We all know them, what to worry about? Everything! The giants of the internet are expanding into every corner of the economy, politics and our lives. They control the majority of digital advertising; Alphabet, Google's parent, and Facebook receive more than 60...

There can be no doubt that the FANG companies – Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google, as well as Twitter – have transformed society since their emergence. Like all social transformations, the changes wrought by their services have had ripple effects that are both positive and negative. On...